Staff Writer
The
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against AT&T for slowing
down its data speeds for unlimited customers after they use a certain amount of
data per month, a practice called “throttling.” The FTC claims that AT&T
failed to accurately disclose that its customers would have their data access
restricted. AT&T claims that it has done nothing wrong because it no longer
offers unlimited plans for new customers, and it notified its existing
customers that they would have their data slowed beforehand.
According
to the FTC, AT&T has been throttling its data customers since 2011. In some
instances, customers had their data speeds slowed by 80 to 90 percent after
they used as little as two gigabytes of data. To put this in perspective,
streaming one hour of Netflix consumes two gigabytes of data. The slower data
speeds are said to predate the smartphone era, making many modern mobile
applications difficult or impossible to use.
Victims
of the throttling policy have accused AT&T of using “bait and switch”
tactics. They say that AT&T lured them into buying into a contract by
offering “unlimited” data, then threatened them with early termination fees if
they tried to cancel after throttling began.
AT&T
is not the first company to adopt throttling practices. Sprint, T-Mobile, and
Verizon have all received complaints from users who have had their data speeds
reduced. All of these companies, including AT&T, assert that slowing down
speeds for some data users is necessary for “network optimization.” In the case
of AT&T the FTC has refuted this claim, stating that the network
optimization does not justify the magnitude of the throttling.
